[dp0622]

yeah but are 20 percent of the pilots gonna be gay? That’s all that really matters :)

[Tonytitan]

It’s cute! I want one! I bet I could land it in my back yard.

[Texas Fossil]

Venezuela recently announced plans to order 24 of the craft, and the Zambian Air Force ordered 6.

Venezuela? LMAO

[Chode]

must be nice to have 90% of your design and R&D done for free..

[PreciousLiberty]

Interesting... China is certainly developing a lot of new aircraft designs lately.

I wonder how things are going with with the J-20? This article says it's in low-rate production, with operational status possible as early as 2018 - perhaps on par with the F-35. Too bad we have so few F-22s.

The J-20 isn't a bad looking plane:

[r_barton]

China has tried to build a 737 copycat airliner and it is years late.
They seem to be having difficulty copying a 50 year old airliner design.
They are not even buying the jet engines, but buying them from the west.

Comac C919 (738 - A320 copycat airliner)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_C919

[octex]

I worked for a major defense contractor for 35 years.

It seems that in the last decade many other countries have more heavily invested in advancing the state of their military forces, while the USA just continues to decrease the budget for the DoD and give out more handouts to illegals and people who refuse to work.

Our active military forces are having to raid aircraft bone yards and museums for components to keep very old aircraft flying! .........The Dems took control of Congress in 2006 and then Obama arrived in 2008. Military spending for new products was severely cut and the GOP control of Congress in the past couple of years hasn’t forced any change.

Our armed forces are weaker than they have been since before WWII. ....Sure, there’s some new technology being employed, but the delays/failures of the F-22 and F-35 as well as the Navy’s Littoral ships take too long to deploy to service and are costing far too much. .....Blame falls on the DoD idiots who recommend such products and all of the red tape wrapped around the contractors.

Other countries are kicking our butts in terms of producing large numbers of military weaponry, while our people sit at a computer and dream of designing a perfect missile, aircraft, boat, ship, etc., knowing we no longer have the manufacturing facilities or capabilities we had a few decades ago.

Apologies for the little rant.